[thejeff]

Good point, we've got chris arguing we can't tax the rich more because "Top 5% of earners pay 50% of the taxes in the U.S.", which is close enough to true. He neglects to mention they also bring in roughly 50% of the income. And probably a far larger percentage of actual assets.
On the other hand NTJedi claims there's no point in raising taxes on the rich since they just find loopholes and never pay taxes anyway.
I'm not quite sure how to reconcile those arguments. The facts of the first one seem to check out, and don't seem that unfair with a little bit of context. In fact, it suggests that the top 5% are barely paying their fair share ("Fair" is a fuzzy word in this context. In one sense it would be "fair" for the top 5% to pay 5% of the taxes.)
The US seemed to do quite well in 50s & 60s with top marginal tax rates up in the 90% range. What has accompanied the lowering of those rates since then is a massive transfer of wealth upwards. The top few percent control a much larger percentage of the countries wealth than at any time since the Roaring Twenties. I would like to see that reversed.